Study: Carbon Nanotubes Could be Used for New Energy Systems

A team of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say. The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, is such a new discovery that it’s hard to predict exactly what the practical applications will be. But one researcher suggested that a possible application would be in enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices — for example, devices the size of grains of rice, perhaps with sensors or treatment devices that could be injected into the body. Or it could lead to “environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air.”Read more from MIT.

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Electronics Cooling magazine has been providing a technical data column since 1997 with the intent of providing you, the readers, with pertinent material properties for use in thermal analyses. We have largely covered the most common materials and their associated thermal properties used in electronics packaging.